April 29, 2004
Geeks Unite!
In other news......what might happen if we moved to Utah?
This isn't in stone, people, just a blip across the radar, but what if the radar turned into actual reality????????????
April 27, 2004
Just try to start something with me
Saturday: Take two hours at an arboretum plant sale, sore arms, grumpy from the crushing humanity, and $75 later.
Then add Sunday: Six hours of hard, yard labor in the blistering sun and $50 at the local compost/fertilizer store.
Mix in Monday: Another hour at the store, another two in the yard, a rusty wine barrel cut in half, and $80 at previous plant store getting mulch, potting soil, birthday cards and flip flops, yet still remaining undecided about which plants are going in the barrels, which means yet another trip to the plant store and more money and more hours and did I mention my arms were sore?
If after all that, this:
turns into this:
Then I swear to god I won't be held responsible for my organic garden/yard turning into a chemical war zone. Even if the damn Western Tent Caterpillars don't leave any "permanent" damage.
If that yard looks vaguely familiar to you, then where the HELL where you on Sunday when I needed an extra hand or two? And don't give me that look, you know the Hub hates yard work. There's still lots left to do if you are so inclined, for instance there needs to be a barrier between the grass I left and the dirt.
You know, if you felt like it.
April 22, 2004
This is why you shouldn't go back
So I scanned in all the photos I got from Idaho, and they are just sitting here BEGGING me to post them. I should mention a few things about myself in High School. The first being that Mom gave me a perm each fall right before school started. Also, it isn't like I was forced. Lastly, ugh, I hate my teeth in these pictures. Thank GOD they don't look like that anymore, and hooray for braces! I think I might look like one of the people from the The Big Book of British Smiles in the Simpsons.
For your amusement, I present my horrible teen-hood on film:
Vacation makes me feel special love (at least, I think that is how it goes).
Laughing yourself crosseyed can now commence.
April 20, 2004
I-D-A-H-O, Idaho! Idaho! Go, Go, Go!
So I went to Idaho and I survived to tell the tale. The funeral ended up being Wednesday, so I worked Tuesday evening and then drove to Spokane after. Luckily, my sister decided she could go along as well and I had company. A major side bonus is that she has the same music fetish as I do, which is to play a favorite song some fifty times in a row, while singing along. The next morning we got up and followed my brother to Sandpoint. I haven't ever driven there on my own before, but we as a family we went there a lot. So it was a little surreal seeing all those same places I had seen many times before, yet with fresh eyes, like it was the first time.
Grandma was actually cremated so it wasn't a funeral, but more of a service, I am just using the handy term because it clarifies so much. There isn't a ton of money to rub together on that side of the family so they held it at the local VFW because apparently Gma was involved somehow with them way back when. We got there and let me tell you, I haven't seen so many sweater dresses since the '80s. A large room, with lots of long cafeteria-style tables and metal fold-up chairs, I wondered if we were at a local AA meeting.
And the relatives, oh the relatives! Cousins upon cousins, with passel-loads of children. The aforementioned sweater dresses, not to mention lots of bad perms, there were many a home dye-job as well, why does it always have to be blonde? The men went out of their way to dress up in style. If by style you mean khaki pants, short sleeve dress shirts, white tube socks, black dress "tennies" and polyester ties. If they were handing out best dressed awards, it would have been me, my sister, and our cousin Mary in first, second, and third. Everyone else would have tied for last.
I should mention that my cousins Mary and Tina, who are daughters of the Aunt who is not-to-be-named in my mother's presence, live over on this side of the state and have kept in touch. They are really cool, and we all get along fabulously. We have all worked really hard in our lives to not fall into the trap of our forefathers. No out-of-wedlock kids for us, no divorces, ok, ok divorces, but not the 4 or more of others.
Since there had been the whole family falling-out thing between Mom and her sisters, I was amazed at the friendly welcome I received from my Aunts. All the grandkids (and Daughters) that lived in Sandpoint were passing around roses, to signify being immediate family and I felt rather slighted that no one thought about giving any to the family that travelled the distance. Then I looked at their bad shoes and passel-loads of kids, and let it go. The $100 an event pastor started it out, read the obituary that was printed in the paper (little piece of advice: try a practise run through before you do it in front of a crowd), sang Amazing Grace, and let the floor open up for commentary.
The Grandma these people talked about never existed in my life, and I have to guess that it was equal parts rose-colored glasses, and part and parcel of my grandma treating all of her kids differently. I was just about to get up and talk about all the old times at the lake, all the card games, the fishing, the walks, the snails we found, the old inner tubes, sifting the sand at the beach to get rid of the rocks......and then the pastor ended commentary. I have it all in my heart, though. It still exists there.
Then we got down to the nitty gritty. We all went back to Gma's place and were looking through photos. Now I know you can surmise from all my description before, that there weren't a lot of expensive things to fight over, there was no fat bank account. Turns out it doesn't matter. My Grandma collected a lot of shit in her life and apparently people were willing to fight over it. I say, throw that crap in a pile and start a fire, or have a yard sale, but noooooooooo. It came down to winning one last time and it was rather sickening to see. We all had to make the sojourn to the little apartment, and receive our special item. This is what I received:
The best part is that it had candy in it, which they tossed out, but never washed! Ewwwwwwwwwwww. Unfortunately, I washed it before I took the pictures. You can still see the dirt residue that I tried to wash off. Those crevices are tricky!
All the cousins sat around and made fun of the Aunts and all the crap we were forced to take home. It was lovely to see that as adults, we can toss off our parents' baggage, and get along. Despite their shite taste in clothes, they turn out to be funny, nice people. Who knew? The real motherload that I got to take home were all the school pics my Grandmother had of all of us kids. My mom already has copies so now they are mine! Well, H-star gets to keep hers, of course, but I have them for now because I have the scanner.
Now the dirt to dish. You wonder if it could get any worse, and of course, it can. One cousin, we'll call her .....hell, I dunno, Cousin #1. Cousin #1 had a child when she was 15, then another one at 16, and one last one at around......oh, 18. All different fathers. Never married. Horribly sad. Well, her oldest daughter who is all of 18 just had her own little girl. Now my cousin is a grandmother at 34. Thirty-FOUR. My sister will have her first child in September, when she is 34. Her child will be younger than our cousin's grandchild! Gross detail, cousin #1 has a mouth full of blackened teeth. All together now, "Ewwwwwwwww."
Since we haven't exactly been exchanging letters, some cousins were surprised to find out I was married. Cousin #2 asked me why I would want to do such a thing as he had tried it twice before and never found it to work out. He's 28 and has 2 kids 8 and 7, each from different moms. So he apparently got married had a kid, divorced, remarried, had a kid and got divorced in little over 2 YEARS. Hello? What are they putting in the water over in Idaho, anyway?
After the funeral, we drove home, and had a nice family meal together and then played games until bedtime. I guess when people die, you can make happy memories.
April 12, 2004
While I am in limbo
So who knew it took DAYS for siblings to pick a funeral day? Certainly not me, as my life is here on hold while they make the decision, and since I live just about 500 miles away a decision would be nice. My boss thinks so, too.
So while we are all waiting, let's do another session of weird links!
Try different commands, fly, moonwalk......my current favorite is to tell him to strip.
Special thanks to SuzieQ and her freaky link finder http://jelly.b3ta.com/
Meanwhile, I have to go shopping for smaht funeral clothes. Gotta look good for all the redneck, white trash relatives I haven't seen for near to twenty years.
April 10, 2004
Cocolalla Lake
My grandmother was a tough old lady. In her life she was married four times and had six kids, one of whom died early on in life. She was one of those rare women in the Forties and Fifties who worked to support her kids. She even had her own diner, for awhile.
Most of the time the family lived in fairly abject poverty. My mother only alludes to the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of many a step-father. Mom was the eldest daughter in the family and as early as five remembers preparing meals and cooking and cleaning for all of her siblings. Dad tells the story of when he and Mom met and starting going out, one night they were out past curfew and ran into grandma, out carousing with her latest fling. Neither one ratted the other out.
I was fairly lucky in that I never really saw that side of my Grandma, at least not until later. As a kid I remember a Grandma and Grandpa who had a cute little lake cabin up at Lake Cocolalla, near Sandpoint, Idaho. Many a weekend in the Summer, we would all drive to the cabin, sometimes to see all the Aunts and Uncles and spouses and cousins, sometimes just to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa. There was this spooky shed that had all the old ratty lake stuff, and I was always a little creeped out to go in there and get innertubes, or the like. Dank and dingy, it was filled with cobwebs.
I remember huge meals of greasy, fried food. I recall vividly my sister and myself having to wash all those dishes, while all the adults played cards. For some reason, none of the other grandkids had this onerous task, or perhaps that's just my memory getting in the way. Grandma loved to play cards and this dice game called 5,000. That's what I really remember about her, all those summer days wiled away in the cabin, playing cards.
Grandma was a manipulative lady, who pitted her kids against each other. My Mom was always the perfect child, never got in trouble, never argued, yet somehow she was cast in the role of pariah, while the other troubled sibs got to be pet, in their turn. As an adult, I think she was regarded warily as a goodie-two-shoes by her sisters and brothers because of her lack of divorces, or for never being on welfare, nor having several children with different men. In many ways my mother tried very hard to live opposite of her own mother.
This tended to cause rifts in the family, as Dad and Grandma regarded each other as the-one-who-manipulates-Mom. Dad was always seeing my Mom's feelings getting hurt, and it made him angry. He always deals with anger and fear the same way, with anger and violence. You could easily be getting a very Jerry Springer sort of idea of my mother's family, and you couldn't be closer to the truth, really.
(side note one - once Mother was feeling really sick, and she knew Grandma and Grandpa were in town for the evening and were coming over for dinner. She got a stew started in the oven, and went to lay down for a bit. They came over, saw the food, dished up, ate, and left, leaving all the mess. They never even woke Mom up!)
For many years after I left Spokane, I didn't really keep in touch with Grandma. A phone call here, a chance meetup there. I expected fire and brimstone, or the hand of god to reach down and smite her, yet she was always sweet and loving to me. Grandma always told me how good I looked, how happy she was to see me, and reminded me to call her every now and then.
(side note two - when I was 13, my Grandma pulled my mom aside and suggested that I looked like I might be in the "family way." THIRTEEN! Good lord. Although being preggers might be almost nicer than the family propensity for taking on weight that I seem to have inherited.)
Two years ago my mother-in-law asked about my Grandma and I told her some of the story, and she suggested I call her up and wish her Happy Thanksgiving (clearly this was Thanksgiving time). So I called Mom to ask for the number, thinking that she would be really pissed at me, like I was going against her wishes by being nice to her mom. She was delighted. Regardless of how you were brought up, you are always tied to your parents, and Mom was forever chasing after Grandma's approval.
When my sister got married last Summer, Mom and Grandma stayed at my house. It was fun in a surreal kind of way. We took Grandma to one of my favorite lunch places and I suggest she have their version of the ruben sandwich. She hated it because it wasn't traditional. I offered to get her something else, or at least ask for something to spruce the sammy up. She decided to just remain passive-aggressive and keep the sandwich, all the while complaining about it. It got kind of funny after awhile, because I got to flip her so much crap about it. I finally told her that if she wasn't going to let us make her happy then she could at least stop making us unhappy.
She was funny when she came over, we laughed a lot. She seemed so frail and had an oxygen tank with her. She couldn't use the stairs to get to our spare bed in the basement, so we had to make do with an airbed in the backroom. Sometime around 5 am I heard her calling, "Help!" She was uncomfortable in the bed and tried to get up on her own, but couldn't, so she crawled to the couch to try to get up on it. She couldn't get up on that either, and so was stuck sitting under a fan blowing cold air all over the place. She told us she was there the whole night, although I tend to think that time might have just seemed slow, sitting there on the floor in just a nightie.
Later on the Hub wondered why she didn't just crawl over to our bedroom door and get us up. It certainly would have ruined the story.
Late yesterday afternoon, Grandma was found in her apartment, unconscious. Taken to the hospital, doctors speculated on a heart attack. According to her wishes (via living will), she was taken off life support and the vigil started. She died shortly after 5:30 this morning, her sons and daughters by her side. She was a horrible woman. She was a great woman. She made all of us possible, tearing off in our different directions in life.
Now I have no grandparents and it is an extremely strange feeling. I know later on today I will go in to work and have to pretend to many people that something extraordinary didn't just happen. I guess, really, it isn't that extraordinary, people die all the time, this just happens to be personal.
I feel the most for Mom, who will probably never know if she was truly loved by her own mother. However, this tragedy seems to be knitting us all a little tighter. More than likely I will get to make the sojourn to Idaho for the funeral sometime this week, where I will see cousins I haven't seen since 1988. This also means I get to go get a new black dress. Since I have been putting of buying new work clothes, seems like the right time. Now, Grandma, if you worked this out correctly, my staff will be thanking you, as the meeting on Monday will likely be cancelled along with the test they were about to take.
In the ideal world, Grandma is now at the card table, surrounded by men and the perfect ruben. Hopefully it has enough Russian dressing.
